Lawbreakers Team-Shooting Gameplay is Furious and Fluid

Anti-heroes in anti-gravity.

By
Brandin Tyrrel

In a year of colorfully bright hero-shooters getting ready to take over, Lawbreakers is something different. It’s a hybrid of a hybrid, as strange as that sounds, mixing the feel of a frantic arena shooter with the tactics of a character-class team shooter. Then it sends the whole thing into a freeform spiral by bending and breaking the laws of gravity.

Boss Key’s shooter takes place in our future, after the appropriately named “Shattering” broke things up and introduced gravity anomalies. But the story goes that people are starting to use these anomalies in their favor, learning how to pull off crazy maneuvers, which is similar to how I felt a few matches into Lawbreakers.

The map I played, Grandview, houses an anti-gravity bubble in the center. These distortion fields force you to think about things like trajectories, propulsion, weightlessness, and verticality as you move. In short, they mix things up really well.

After playing for several hours, I’ve been describing Lawbreakers as Quake meets Team Fortress 2 set in a futuristic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon world. It’s fast and surprisingly fluid. Characters defy physics, moving in unexpected ways with abilities like sprints, ridiculously satisfying grappling hooks, and afterburner jet engines.

Lawbreakers is a straightforward two-team, 5-v-5 competition, featuring the, wait for it… Law side, and the Breakers side. Each team currently has four classes, identical on both sides, though more are currently in development.

You’ve got the brutish Titan that soaks up damage and bullies the other team by flinging rockets and electricity.

The Vanguard is the nimble, jet-powered, chaingun-wielding menace that lobs shards of fire from the sky and crashes down on opposing players, creating their own anti-gravity bubble.

And lastly, the Assassin, who whips herself around the level with a futuristic grappling hook, striking from unpredictable angles with a charge-up shotgun, or coming in really close with her twin blades and whirlwind ultimate ability.

Though classes play identically on either team, the characters and personalities are unique to their respective sides of the law. For example, the Enforcer on the Law side is the no-fuss Axel, while the Breakers’ Enforcer role is filled by the loud-mouth Kintaro.

But each class comes equipped with a movement ability, a utility or damage ability, and an ultimate ability, along with their primary and secondary weapons.

For example, the Titan’s equipped with a rocket launcher for long-range and an electricity gun that spews a continuous arc of close-range damage. The Titan’s also got a chargeable leap, letting you close the gap, and turning anyone in your impact zone into pulp.

But, like all roles in Lawbreakers, the Titan is most dangerous when its ultimate ability – which charges over time – is ready to go. Activating it unleashes a shockwave of force that, again, leads to very pulpy things in your immediate vicinity. After that, the Titan can hurl lightning from its hands, electrocuting enemies and locking down an area.

But while the Titan is a powerhouse, it’s also got the slowest movement speed role in the game. That’s where the gravity anomalies come into play along with Lawbreakers’ unique backfire ability. Entering the anti-gravity bubble means when the Titan blind-fires backwards – a feature everyone can do – it’s propelled forward. But this added mobility comes at the cost of spending ammunition.

And what’s stuck with me about my few hours with Lawbreakers. It wasn’t just the close, white-knuckle matches, or satisfying kills. It’s that pervasive sense of min-maxing movement and tactics. Every character has these little tricks, these little ways to maximize the speed and potency of their arsenals in order to perfect their role – and all of them are distinctly different.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t die half a dozen times trying to swing around outside the back of the map with the Assassin’s grappling hook. But when I got the hang of it I could leave my base, and, within the span of a few seconds, land in the enemies’ base without ever touching the ground. It’s exhilarating to pull off.

As someone enamored with super-competitive multiplayer, Lawbreakers has undeniably piqued my interest. It’s a dirtier and darker take on the class-based team shooter, aimed at a more adult audience than most of its peers. But more importantly, it’s been a long time since a game’s movement felt so satisfying.